Malfoy's Wand
by Oshun
Summary: A Harry/Draco romance: if you do not like that sort of thing, consider yourself warned. It is the story the transition from war to peace. Harry brings Draco's wand to Malfoy Manor and a relationship begins.
1. Chapter 1

**Betas**: IgnobleBard, Lilithlessfair and Erulisse; and thanks to Spicedwine for initial Brit picking (any remaining errors were added later and are my own).

"But you're too late. You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him... So it all comes down to this, doesn't it? Does the wand in your hand know its last master was disarmed? Because if it does...I am the true master of the Elder Wand." —Harry to Voldemort, _The Deathly Hallows_ (during the Battle of Hogwarts)

When he woke up that morning, the first thing Harry thought of was taking the wand and going to Malfoy Manor. If he stopped to Owl Draco or to think about whether he really wanted to do it, he would lose his nerve. Theoretically it probably was more than safe to send the wand by Owl—that's how he had received it after all. But an eerie mental image of an owl being hit by lightning and Draco's hawthorn wand being lost forever kept flitting across his consciousness. Ridiculous, of course. It was hardly as though the roads and byways of the English countryside were littered with package-bearing owls struck down in their prime by random bolts of lightning.

With a measure of partial success, he had tried to obey Draco's last imperative and push thoughts of him to the back of his mind. It felt obvious that the last thing Draco needed was Harry's problems, he had more than enough of his own. The lethargy that peace brought with it was consoling, but the thoughts of the war and its losses were never far away and apt to pop up when they were least welcome. And always, along any of those memories came Draco's face, with a steak of soot down one cheek, his pupils blown with arousal, and his lips red and kiss-swollen. The dialogue played out along with the visual memory:

'_What do you think you are doing, Potter_?'

'_I'm kissing you, of course_,' the memory Harry would say, popping open the buttons on Draco's trousers. '_Do you want me to stop_?'

'_Does it look like I do_?' Draco would ask, looking down at Harry's hands, before meeting his eyes with a look of breathless triumphalism. Harry never knew who made the next move, lips crashing together, wet and needy. Meanwhile everything about the incident was completely dominated by the sense of passionate competition which had always ruled their encounters.

Finally, Draco would stop them, but not before he let Harry bring him off, spilling all over his trousers and shirttails and Harry's hand. '_I have to go back inside the Great Hall before one of my parents come looking for me_.' Harry would mumble a wandless cleansing spell and Draco would give him a sweet quick kiss and a bland, unreadable glance. '_Harry,'_ Draco said, the first and only time he had ever called him Harry, '_You know we cannot do this again_.' He did not look at all as though he meant it.

They had not spoken to one another at Draco's trial where Harry had testified. He had not been able to bring himself to contact Draco afterwards. It felt to him as though he would be placing Draco in a position of having no choice but to tolerate him out of gratitude.

But that morning, considering that Draco's wand had been missing for weeks, Harry felt guilty that he had not thought of it a single time. The judiciary proceedings relating to the Malfoy family had ended weeks earlier. Then the previous day, seemingly out of nowhere and to his great surprise, Harry had received a package from the Wizengamot containing items belonging to him which had been held as evidence: the contents of his pockets, fragments of clothing and other objects. Included among the random detritus was Draco's hawthorn wand. Harry had never expected to see it again. He had assumed that, after all of the inquests and hearings had ended, the Wizengamot would return the wand directly to Draco.

There were complicated rules and precedents of the Wizarding world that Harry still tended to forget. According to those, the hawthorn wand now belonged to Harry. He had captured it fair and square from Malfoy. Yet Harry had not thought of it as a prize to win and keep. His intent had been simply to disarm Draco at the time. It was incidental and lucky for him that it happened when he desperately needed a wand and he liked the way it felt in his grip. Despite the importance of the wand to Harry's purposes, the wand had remained uniquely Draco's to him.

From the first moment, it felt comfortable against Harry's palm. More than an inch shorter than Harry's own holly wand with its phoenix feather core, the hawthorn wand appeared ordinary on the surface, almost a child's wand, which it had been. In spite of its rather unusual unicorn hair core, its appearance was blunt and inelegant, with a rounded end and serviceable grip. Despite any crisis of confidence Draco might have recently endured, he remained Slytherin through and through, while the hawthorn wand incongruously manifested a straightforward honest appeal. Further, the presence of a unicorn hair lent it an unexpectedly innocent character.

The entire concept of fitting a wand to its holder had always fascinated Harry. How could Draco be matched with such a workmanlike wand? The Malfoy heir, so tall, attenuated and elegant, who insisted upon the highest quality in every object he used, from his peacock quills dyed iridescent black to the creamy pages of the expensive journals he had used for his class notes. Harry remembered his first day in Diagon Alley in Ollivander's Wand Shop how the old wizard said to him, "The wand chooses the wizard." He wondered if eleven-year-old Draco had curled up his pretty mouth in his characteristic sneer at the sight of the uninspired looking wand with its only embellishment a simply carved, black-stained grip. Probably not. More likely even spoiled Draco Malfoy, despite centuries of the most reactionary aspects of Wizarding history weighing upon his child's frail shoulders, had been too overcome with the thrill of holding his first wand to question the choice.

The nature of the grounded and unexciting although highly magical hawthorn wand's choice of Draco felt like something Harry should understand. But muzzy-headed and worn-out, Harry found the point elusive, slipping just beyond his grasp every time he felt close. His head had not cleared since the events at Hogwarts nearly three months ago. He still existed in a fog, relieved but dulled and dispassionate. Perhaps there was something about him with his plebian clumsiness that demanded a spiky, refined wand while Draco with his much sharper mind and aristocratic manner needed only a simple one?

The oddest thing was, as comfortable as Draco's wand had felt in Harry's hand, how could it be that he had not thought of it again from the day of the Battle of Hogwarts until yesterday. A wet and bedraggled Ministry owl, with an attitude of being much put upon, had scratched on Harry's window. It had been late in the afternoon and raining hard, but Harry had briefly considered traveling straight to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire despite the time and weather. He instead had stretched out in his favorite overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace with a footstool under his feet for hours the night before, holding the hawthorn wand and turning it over and over, until it felt warm in his hand, feeling almost as though he touched Draco through it. He wondered if Draco could sense that he fondled his wand, bizarre and fanciful stuff indeed. Finally, he had retired, sleeping fitfully and dreaming of the wand and Draco's face, pale and beautiful, with a defensive smirk barely hiding its heart-wrenching vulnerability.

Since Harry had no idea what, if any, wards remained intact around Malfoy Manor, he Apparated to a spot several hundred feet down the narrow lane which led up to the front entrance of the grounds. The Manor itself reminded Harry of other historic homes of which there were a number in Wiltshire similar in size if not design to Malfoy Manor. Located off a branch of a subsidiary road, it was not visible from any principal thoroughfares or motorways. If it were to be seen by anyone Muggle or Magical not looking for it, the Manor would not particularly call attention to itself. The effect of glimpsing it on one's horizon from a distance was to sense a mildly off-putting ambiance. It did not present the picture of the stereotypical creepy haunted mansion, but neither would it encourage by-passers to want to seek access to frolic or picnic on its grounds.

The yew hedge around the spacious grounds rose almost two feet higher than Harry's head. The closer one drew to it, the more the hedge blocked one's visibility of the house and its extensive gardens. The house itself, not particularly old by Wizarding standards, appeared to date to the mid-1500s. Hermione had told Harry she had read that it was older by several hundred years. The house was constructed mainly of stone, pale grey in color and had not been allowed to show signs of age, having been maintained in pristine condition.

As Harry walked up the drive from the road to the gate with his thoughts focused on Draco, desperately hoping he would be able to see him. Very likely he would be greeted by a house elf, relieved of his package, and sent on his way. Or perhaps not. Narcissa Malfoy might speak with him and politely accept the wand on Draco's behalf.

In the unlikely event that Draco did consent to see him, Harry did not expect him to be warm. But it would not be out of character for Draco to be courteous in a formal way on his own turf with none of the defensive sniping he used with Harry at school, even if he were disturbed about what had happened when they had last met one on one. Harry admitted to himself grudgingly that he needed to see Draco with the most visceral of cravings, even if it meant that Draco would only accept the wand and thank him. Harry hoped he would have the opportunity to explain why he had not returned it sooner. He wouldn't tell the whole truth. He tried to imagine himself doing that and failed utterly.

"_Hey, Malfoy! You're looking good._" He had heard through the grapevine that Draco was not looking well. But that was neither here nor there—to Harry he always looked exceptional. Objectively, to even those not hopelessly besotted like Potter, Draco looking poorly would still look good. Draco appearing less perfect was relative only to himself and not in comparison to the rest of the world.

And what ought he to say? "_I'm really sorry I jumped on you, snogged you senseless, and rutted up against you in the middle of that whole chaos that comprised the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. I suppose I was just so happy that you had lived through it and I thought it might be my only chance ever to snog you. It wouldn't have been so bad, if I had not let you so easily talk me into pretending to forget it ever happened. Would it make a difference to you to know that I've regretted not arguing with you about that every minute since then? I've been a mess, moping around, trying to avoid spending time with my friends, acting like a Third-year girl unwilling to give up on an unrequited crush. Hermione is tearing her hair out over me. By the way, she knows I'm here today. I woke her up this morning wanting to talk about us. Ron doesn't know yet. She thinks I ought to come clean with you. You know the clichés. Put my cards on the table. Come right out and tell you how much I want and need you. Do you have any idea what a concession that is for her_?"

No. Absolutely no way would he be saying any of that. It was Draco's turn to make the next move, if one was counting, which Harry had been up until the day before. He had been counting every half-smile not stifled quickly enough, every glance he caught that Draco had thought remained well hidden. Harry was not called a bloody Gryffindor fool by the likes of Draco for nothing. He took the biggest chance of either of them.

He was the one who had grabbed Draco in a deserted corridor in Hogwarts and kissed him until he gave up and kissed him back. Then he reached between them, unfastening the top two buttons of Draco's trousers and, taking hold of him, yanked, caressed, and pulled at Draco's lovely long cock until he had brought him off. Draco got big points for admitting, in a breathy, astonishingly erotic voice, "Forget everything I ever said to the contrary. You are totally brilliant, Potter." But then he had lost every credit he had accrued when he told Harry they should never do it again. Then the ball was back in Draco's court.

But Harry was not just courageously foolish or foolishly courageous; he was generous to a fault. Receiving the wand meant that he could come to see Draco while still managing to hide behind a few tattered shreds of dignity. He stopped counting, erased all the debits and credits, when he held the wand in his hand again and determined that he would return it to Draco.

According to Harry, dignity was madly overrated. That was something huge that he could teach Draco. He would simply explain that he had only just received the wand and that he _was_sorry for not trying to reach Draco sooner, at least to see how he was doing. Just because Draco had told him to leave him alone did not mean that was what he really wanted. Hermione had laboriously explained to Harry that from what he had admitted to her it was highly unlikely that Draco really wanted him to stay completely away. That when he told Harry they ought not see one another again, what he probably meant was that he needed for Harry to work much harder to woo him.

On the other hand, Harry had no reason to believe, except that he had recently heard otherwise, that Draco was anything but certifiably crazy. Draco's living conditions, well-being and hopes for survival during that entire last period in Malfoy Manor had only been marginally better, maybe worse, than those of Voldemort's prisoners locked in the dungeons below the mansion. And Draco had guilt to overcome as well as physical and emotional trauma inflicted upon him by Voldemort and a houseful of Death Eaters. He had also been completely alone, while Harry at least had his friends.

What Harry had heard from Hermione, who claimed Dean Thomas as her source, who had purportedly spoken to Finch-Fletchley, who had heard the story from an unnamed other party, was that Draco was lucid, rational and in reasonably good health. Further gossip making the rounds stated that while Draco's recovery was slow, not unlike that of Harry himself, he was going to be alright. Of course, he would be alright. Like Harry, Draco was a survivor. But there is more to life than surviving Harry thought.

Straight from the horse's mouth-Minerva McGonagall in this case-Harry had learned that Draco had decided to return to Hogwarts in the fall. In a letter Harry had received from her about offering an additional year at Hogwarts for all who had missed most of their last year due to the war, she had included Draco on a list of those of Harry's year who had already expressed their intent to return. McGonagall had also mentioned in a postscript to that same list that she hoped Harry would help him settle in, noting that Draco would most likely encounter some mistrust among the student body in general and possibly be viewed as a traitor by his own house as well.

Maybe Draco would shake his hand. Would Draco's hand feel as smooth as it looked? He'd kissed him open mouthed, stroked Draco's stiff prick and far, far more, but he had never simply touched his hand. The skin on Draco's hips was as baby soft as that of Ginny, but even if it had not been, the magic between them was compatible and explosive enough to make the point moot. Surely Draco could feel that. Such miracles could not be conjured up at will. Immutable fate was not supernaturally derived in Harry's opinion but the result of a coming together of a whole series of factors relating to them both involving their history and that of those who came before them and, of course, Draco's incredible hotness. Would Draco hate him or might he permit Harry another kiss straight away? _Please don't fuck with doom and fate, Draco,_Harry thought, while simultaneously wondering if he simply was a silly, romantic git destined to have his heart broken. He had accepted the challenge that it might not be impossible that he could win Draco Malfoy's love when had decided to Apparate to Wiltshire. It was no more unlikely than that he could have defeated Voldemort.

Until the day Harry saved Draco from the Fiendfyre, except to strike him or wrestle him to the ground and pummel him, he had never before touched him. He recollected with absolute clarity the feeling of Draco's chest pressed against his back, the ragged pants of breath against his ear, the roar and heat of the flames rushing behind them. Harry had never flown so hard or desperately. The memory of the tensile strength of Draco's long arms wrapped around him was replaced by the smell of him. The acrid scent of fear had supplanted Draco's usual trace of soap and aftershave, fresher and lighter than spring air in a forest clearing.

_"Fuck! I am always been such a whinging girl when it comes to him,"_ he thought. _"I have it so bad. I've wanted him for years. Even when I suspected that he might be a baby apprentice death eater, I hoped against hope that he was not, wishing I was mistaken I kept right on wanting him. What's wrong with me?"_He recalled Hagrid's coarse, compassionate voice as he told him when he was but an eleven-year-old boy, "You're a wizard, Harry." Maybe Harry's magic, extraordinary in its power, had always known that Draco was not all evil. Dumbledore had believed Draco was redeemable. He had been willing to risk his life and that of Snape on the strength of his conviction.

The heavy gate to the inside courtyard of Malfoy Manor stood slightly ajar. As Harry approached, he recognized the dark maroon Auror uniform before he identified the man wearing it. Liam Walsh stuck his head around the wrought-iron tines of the gate, to see who walked up the last few yards of the driveway. Not much older than Harry and with a manner young for his age, Walsh was a raven-haired, blue-eyed Irishman. With skin nearly as pale as Draco's, Liam had prominent ears and a long horsey face that appeared homely at first glance, but which with increased familiarity began to grow on one as remarkably handsome.

Walsh greeted Harry with a grin, a nod and just a hint of a wink, before turning his attention back to Narcissa. Draco's mother smiled at Harry, but continued explaining something to the youthful Auror, pointing in the direction of her formal gardens. Harry had heard those gardens had once been her pride and joy. They now looked sadly bedraggled and in danger of going to seed. Having a lunatic snake-faced Dark Lord in residence for months apparently distracted from activities as mundane as grounds keeping or gardening. House elves were out in full force that morning, straggling with their wheel barrows and rakes behind the few Aurors scattered throughout the lawns and arbors.

Serene and cool, Narcissa Malfoy exuded the same air of patrician composure—that entire aspect of the Great and Ancient Noble House of Black's assumption of natural superiority—which had struck Harry about her when he had originally met her. Lucius Malfoy might have had greater wealth and political power at the time he married the young Narcissa Black, but the Blacks represented a more celebrated part of their people's history. Students at Hogwarts had mentioned to Harry, when he knew nothing of the hierarchy of the Wizarding world in the British Isles, that Draco's mother was a _Black_. He had inferred from the awed emphasis they placed on her surname that the Blacks, for good or ill, must be considered something extraordinary. That was before he had met or heard of Sirius Black, who only acknowledged the aristocratic privilege of the House of Black with his sardonic contempt for the entire concept.

Observing Narcissa in front of the mansion that morning, Harry noticed for the first time that the bone structure which he found so singularly attractive in Draco's face must have come from the Black side of his family. Even beneath the hideous mask of madness, one had been able to discern that Bellatrix Lestrange née Black had once been a beautiful woman and Sirius Black, old for his years and battered by the time Harry met him, had been considered the best looking of the Marauders, more handsome during their teenage years than even the charismatic James Potter. Draco's brilliant platinum hair came from the Malfoys, but his appearance of supple elegance, the sharp, fine androgyny of his facial features was all Black.

Narcissa focused a constrained smile upon Harry. The warmth behind it enhanced, but did nothing to soften, her austere exquisiteness. "Harry Potter, good morning," she drawled with a tone of blue-blooded assurance that reminded him of Draco also. "What brings you here today?" She extended her hand to him. Without even considering it, he found himself bending over and kissing it. Ron would have choked if he had seen him. He almost choked himself. He'd never kissed anybody's hand. He could scarcely imagine himself doing such a thing. He had only had ever seen it done in historical movies of men in tights.

"Mrs. Malfoy," he replied, blushing in bewilderment. She had expressed her gratitude to him like a real lady after the trials, more explicitly than her husband or even than Draco for that matter, who knew him well by then and, therefore, had more reason to be appreciative.

"Good morning," he said, trying not to stammer. "I hoped I'd catch Draco at home. I have something I'd like to give him."

She turned to the young man standing next to her. "Auror Walsh, you know Mr. Potter, don't you?"

"I've had the pleasure," he said, grinning at her. "We played Quidditch at Hogwarts together-his first year and my last. Youngest seeker in decades, or was it centuries?" Irritatingly confident, he stuck his hand out to Harry with a knowing smirk. Others who knew the fast-rising young Auror had remarked to Harry that there wasn't a man, woman, child or dog with whom Liam Walsh would not flirt. Unexpectedly, Narcissa Malfoy appeared to find Walsh's cheek mildly amusing. She observed Walsh's interaction with Harry with wry smile in Harry's direction. _Interesting,_ Harry thought. _Draco's more like Narcissa than his father in a whole series of ways._He was thinking of a subtle ability to combine an unshakeable sense of superiority with dry humor.

"Auror Walsh is in charge of finishing up this undertaking, the cleansing of Malfoy Manor." She cocked her head to one side, keeping her eyes locked upon Harry as she spoke. "If you don't need anything else of me at the moment, Deputy Walsh, I'll take Harry inside. You know to send a house elf to find me if there is anything more that you need my help with this morning." She slipped her hand into the crock of Harry's arm, guiding him gently toward the house. "So, it must be the wand that brought you here today. I told him that you would come."

"I received the package from the Ministry late yesterday."

"Ah," she responded.

"I suppose I could have Owled him or tried to figure out how to place a fire-call, but . . . ," Harry hesitated, embarrassed. "I was afraid he'd tell me to send it along and I wanted to see him." _What an idiot I am_, he thought.

"I think he wants to see you also, Harry Potter. He saw Pansy and Blaise yesterday and I happen to know he would far rather have visited with you. That did not go very well either. They were tense and Draco was cold, not conducive to mending fences. They avoided him during and trial and for a while afterwards. Then, when the letters went out about reopening Hogwarts and Draco decided to take Professor McGonagall's offer, they decided it was time to contact him. I can understand Blaise's position, but Pansy has been a friend of Draco's since before they could speak." She raised her chin and clenched her jaw in a gesture of defensive fierceness that Harry recognized from Draco.

As Harry listened, he realized that Narcissa assumed that he wanted to befriend Draco. How she knew that he could not imagine. He had surprised himself earlier that morning by drawing the same conclusion.

"Things change," he said. "In this situation the change has been sudden and irreversible. We will all have to start over . . . " He snapped his mouth shut abruptly to prevent the escape of further inane platitudes.

Narcissa squeezed his arm as though in empathy. "These last several weeks have been hard for Draco." She was such a mother. They had been hard for the entirety of Wizarding Britain. "But he speaks of you sometimes and never with any of the old rancor. He is grateful for all you have done, whether he has explicitly told you or not." This was the plea for Harry to forgive Draco for his prickly bloody-mindedness. And again, somehow, Narcissa Malfoy had already guessed that he would. "You look so much better, Harry," she said. "How _have_you been?"

He didn't even think of trying to answer with the polite avoidance he affected with so many others who asked the same question. "I'm getting better. But I still have nightmares." _Where did that come from?_he asked himself, appalled. But he could not stop. "I'm still so tired. The worst part is that I wake up and wonder what is the point of my life now. For so long I had an absolute purpose and now . . . now what? But I do have my friends around me, most of the time at least. It must be harder for Draco, with so many of his friends scattered and gone."

"So true. But nothing for you to feel guilty about, young man. They made their choices for good or ill, knowing full well the consequences. Not many naïve souls among the young Slytherins," she said, looking up at him with pale, accessing eyes. "What happened between you and the Weasley girl? I saw something about your relationship with her in _The Prophet_. The headline implied you had split up, but I did not read the article. So inappropriate those speculative articles about people's personal lives."

"Now that is something I _do_ have reason to feel guilty about. I suppose I led her on. Then, in a moment of honesty, I realized it was all wrong. I told her it wasn't going to work for us. She was disappointed and angry. Everyone else was puzzled. How _The Prophet_got hold of . . ."

"I see," she said patting his arm. "That is difficult and painful, but less so now than it would have been ten years from now. You are both so young."

They passed more of the red-robed Aurors, perhaps a dozen or so, who busied themselves about the front of the house and the entrance way, inside and out, scanning doors and windows with their wands. Harry presumed they were searching for wards and spells. There was a random but almost lackadaisical quality to their movements.

"Do they know what they are looking for?" he asked, holding back a chuckle at the Monty Pythonesque purposeless looking jerkiness of their gestures.

"From what they tell me it is an inexact science at best and their instructions were less than precise." She released a small tinkling laugh. "It's hard to know what one is looking for when the expectation is that there are more likely than not centuries of old forgotten magic in the least expected corners or objects. I think they already found the worst things within the first three hours they were here: the most recent spells and charms. Unattended magic weakens over time. They are simply being thorough now."

"Interesting," Harry said. "How long have they been working like this?"

"Six maybe seven weeks. They have been going over the house from the inside out. They are almost finished." She shrugged, the implication being that she could not be bothered to complain, that the presence of Aurors removing ancient spells was the least of her recent hardships. "The Malfoys have always provided employment for the English laboring classes, Wizarding and Muggle, with their excesses."

"That's a long time," Harry said, thinking that Hermione would have defended the right to privacy and due process on principle, even on behalf of the morally opaque Malfoys.

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy had been acquitted, even praised for their assistance in protecting Harry and thwarting Voldemort in whatever small ways they had, and the harshest parts of Lucius's sentence would be commuted after only six months served in minimum security at Azkaban, on the contingency that he participate in a program of rehabilitation and pay significant reparations. "A smack on the hands," Arthur Weasley had groused. It was clear, however, that although many were of the mindset of the senior Weasley, the British Wizarding community as a whole wanted to move beyond its divisions as quickly as possible. Voldemort was gone. Relief at that was palpable throughout every aspect of society. Even the economy had rebounded with a flourish that could not have been the result of rebuilding efforts alone.

Most importantly, the line between the oppressors and oppressed had been and still was blurry. It was difficult to distinguish those who operated under actual or virtual Imperius Curses from those who willingly had supported the Dark Lord. Additionally, the culture of Magical Britain instinctively recoiled from mimicking in any way the reprehensible methods of the Muggle Witch hunts of a few centuries earlier. In the wake of throwing off the threat of Voldemort, the quality of mercy was highly valued at a juridical level if not always on a personal one.

As though she had read his mind, Narcissa answered. "Their presence is not a significant violation of our privacy since we have hardly felt at home here since _He_took over the Manor months before the end. The monstrous things that happened here—you saw some of it firsthand-the brutality against his foes and the humiliation of his allies, the eager as well as the reluctant. Perhaps removing all the wards and charms, light and dark, will mean we truly can start over. Make it possible for us to begin to consider it our home again."

Harry thought of Draco, sensitive and tetchy for as long as he had known him about his personal space and privacy. First he had endured the invasion of the manor by the foul and insane Dark Lord and now a small army of Aurors occupied his home. The high ceilings of the entranceway, all stone in a gothic mode, morphed into other architectural forms and styles as one moved into the manor.

They passed through rooms constructed with pre-Tudor-style wood paneling and onto others farther still into the newer sectors which had walls covered in jewel tones of brocade trimmed with gilded plaster crown moldings. The rooms in the main wing contained mostly arched ceilings, but the ones in the side wing where Narcissa led Harry even had a room or two on the far perimeter with flat ceilings with skylights. Throughout the mansion, vast hardwood floors stretched out before them. They were so highly polished that they might have been reminiscent of those of the gymnasium in Harry's childhood Muggle school, had they not been liberally dotted with Persian carpets. The size and palatial aspect of the mansion contradicted anything Harry could wrap his mind around as remotely homey.

Mrs. Malfoy had not vocalized explicitly the nature of her concern for Draco, but Harry, oblivious in some ways according to Hermione, was good at sussing out that kind of anxiety. It was clear to him that Draco's mother believed her son was in serious trouble.

"Maybe Draco would like to stay somewhere else for a while?" he asked. "Someplace without all the awful associations? Could you manage here without him?"

"Harry Potter!" she said, laughing like a girl and looking fifteen years younger in an instant. "You really are an all-purpose hero; you quite live up to your reputation. You're brilliant, as he would say. Yes. I would be fine here alone. I even have friends who have offered to stay with me for a while. My greatest worry at the moment is him. Perhaps you can convince him he needs to get away from here and that September is not nearly soon enough. But let me see if he will even consent to speak to you first." She led him onward into the left wing of the house, away from the central core of the manor, parts of which had appeared vaguely familiar to Harry. He resisted a shudder at the memory of his last visit to the house.

She settled Harry in a room he believed would be called a conservatory or sunroom located in the farthest wing of the building from its central core, overlooking the gardens, still a marvel to him despite their overgrown state. "Maybe if Draco feels well enough to see you, then the two of you can have breakfast together. Meanwhile, I'll have an elf bring you some coffee or tea. Which would you prefer?"

"Thank you. I'd love some coffee, please," he said, unable to resist the opportunity to see what kind of coffee and service a family like the Malfoys would provide. While his previous visit to the manor had felt like a waking nightmare set in Poe's _Fall of the House of Usher_ or Bram Stoker's _Dracula_, this whole excursion was beginning to remind him of endless BBC documentaries his Aunt Petunia had watched with names like "The Stately Homes of England." But this place was no museum with a family quarters tucked off to one side, neither was it a working manor house, surrounded by farmlands and supporting a village. It was merely the historic seat of the richest family of Magical England, perhaps all of Europe, both admired and feared throughout its history, with its reputation for wielding behind-the-scenes Wizarding political power that rivaled that of the Muggle Medicis at their height. Harry had no idea of the source of the Malfoy wealth, but gentlemen farmers they were not.

"Promise me you won't laugh when you see where Draco has entrenched himself. He has taken over the drawing room above us. She smiled, her eyes sparking with suppressed mischief. Oral history of Malfoy Manor identifies it as the site of the salon where a series of Malfoy widows in their declining years plotted and entertained their friends throughout the 18th and 19th centuries."

"I promise I won't tease him," Harry said, thinking that he was unlikely to have any basis for comparison which would cause him to find Draco's choice of lodgings amusing on the surface. Although the idea of Draco bunking down in an elderly lady's fussy drawing room might be funny, the reason he couldn't sleep in his own bedroom was not.

"Good. Draco's sense of humor is somewhat lacking at the moment. Please make yourself comfortable," she said with an expansive sweep of her hand as she exited the conservatory through large double doors leading into yet another parlor- _or maybe they call it a music room_, Harry wondered to himself-containing a black lacquered baby grand piano and a concert harp glowing with the rich amber of well-polished wood.

The sun was bright, but the day cool. The morning light caused Harry to squint looking out into the garden, so he took a seat on an upholstered sofa facing inward. Harry had almost relaxed with the sun warm upon his head and the sound of bird calls and muffled tones of a conversation between two Aurors drifting in through the window, when a house elf entered struggling under the weight of a large tray holding a silver coffee pot, sugar bowl, creamer and a cup and saucer. He wore a spotless tea towel knotted over one shoulder sporting a picture of a lighthouse. He placed the tray upon a small table in front of the sofa and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Harry.

"Milk and one sugar, please," Harry said, thinking Malfoy house elves were uncommonly quiet. "Thank you," he added.

"Oh," the house elf exclaimed in a high shrill voice. "Master Harry Potter is as kind as we have heard." He skittered out of the room backwards, bowing and grinning through the hand he had clapped over his mouth.

Harry had barely finished the small cup of coffee and begun thinking about pouring himself a second when the Lighthouse elf was back. Bowing with a renewed attempt at dignity, he said, "The young Master can see Sir Harry Potter now. Please follow me. I will show you."


	2. Chapter 2

Harry trailed the elf up a short flight of stairs leading directly into a large room almost immediately above the one they had just left. It even had similar windows facing the garden and just as much light, but without the French doors. In the middle of the room stood Malfoy, appetizingly gorgeous, barefoot in white cotton draw string trousers, which reached to just below mid-calf, and a faded pale blue t-shirt cut off at the waist. Sunlight hit the golden hairs on his calves, appealingly athletic despite Draco being whippet thin.

Harry had always imagined Malfoy sleeping in black silk pajamas, something like those of a 1930s film noir playboy, dripping a stereotypical class privilege straight out of one of Hermione's trashy romance novels. He toyed for a second with the idea of teasing her with descriptions of his imaginary Draco of mixed genres, before reporting how he had actually looked.

Draco had no Dark Mark on his arm. Harry spent an inordinate amount of time during his Sixth Year trying to determine whether he had one of those or not. He had nightmares-or must one label them erotic dreams?-of pushing up Draco's sleeve and exposing the hideous skull and serpent tattoo, smudgy black against the pale luminescence of Draco's muscled forearm. More than once the dream had culminated in Harry tracing the outline of it with his tongue. Sometimes he perceived the mark as raised like a scar and tasting faintly unpleasant. Other times it had felt smooth, imperceptible in texture from the rest of his satiny skin and had disappeared as Harry licked and sucked at it—an embarrassing mixture of filthy and idealistic by Harry's assessment. After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had asked him.

Draco had replied, "No. Marking me never came up. The primary purpose of the marks was to provide a means of summoning his minions. He had taken over my fucking home by that time, so it was no longer an issue. I am sure if he had known how much I despised and dreaded the idea, he would have insisted. Not having his loathsome mark on my body was one of the many ways in which I got lucky."

That morning, he looked delicious, good enough to eat. The lightweight trousers and short-sleeved shirt left little to Harry's imagination. Harry wanted the remaining clothing off also. It took more self-control than successfully keeping Snape out of his head by use of Occlumency not to rush Draco and pin him under him on the couch.

"Sorry. I'm not suitable for receiving company," Draco said, shrugging and looking down at his attire, before raking his long fingers through his silky fine hair with one hand, causing it to fall into place as surely as if it had been given the finishing touches by a fashionable hair stylist. Harry could not decide if Draco was a flirtatious passive-aggressive tart or he reacted as strongly as he did because he was simply as fascinated as ever by the blond's looks.

"I don't think I'll ever be comfortable keeping anyone waiting again, after the hours I spent in various antechambers of the Ministry and the Wizengamot, contemplating a future in Azkaban or a loony bin, or under permanent house arrest at best."

His candor disarmed Harry totally. "I would never have let that happen," Harry said, feeling stubborn, stupidly chivalrous, with another storm surge of attraction for Draco.

"Potter," Malfoy said, cocking his head to one side giving Harry a crooked, affectionate smile.

"Hey, Malfoy," Harry answered, releasing the breath he had been holding.

"It is good to see you. Although, as you might guess, my mother did not give me a choice. I would have insisted on seeing you, even she had tried to forbid it. Just one thing—a warning or a plea. I woke up this morning with a killer hangover. Former friends visiting last night caused me to drink too much and stay up half the night. It was not a cozy social gathering. We got blind drunk and fought like alley cats. Next time will probably go a little better. We all still blame one another for a whole lot of painful things.

"Anyway, when I woke up I staggered into the bathroom, feeling more like a dead dog than a human, and reached for a hangover potion. I swallowed a massive swig of a particularly potent Veritaserum I have been working on before I noticed my mistake. Vile tasting also." He shuddered. "I'll need to improve on that. I tried to spit it out, but I had swallowed too much already. So . . . just . . . ah . . . be gentle with me, Potter."

Harry thought he caught a fleeting wink before Draco laughed in a casual, non-defensive way that Harry had never experienced with him before. He had never noticed that Malfoy had such deep dimples either. Not only had Draco been more likely to snarl than smile at him before, but Harry had probably been focusing on his terrific arse and endless legs. Thinner than he had been three months earlier and with smudged lavender circles beneath his eyes, Malfoy still looked astonishing.

Suddenly, a wave of horrible disappointment crashed over Harry. Veritaserum! Malfoy wouldn't be able to lie. He would have no privacy, no free will in the most concrete sense. Draco's most primal responses, which he normally would choose to suppress, would be in control. _Leave it to the boy genius potions expert to fuck this up,_Harry thought.

"Oh," Harry said uselessly with a loud sigh. "I only wanted to return your wand. I just received it yesterday from the Ministry."

"Ah, yes. They sent me a letter explaining that if I wanted the wand, I should request it of you. That was quite unexpectedly decent of them." He bit his lower lip, his light grey eyes crinkling upward at the corners in amusement. "Yes. I was almost certain I would not have to ask. I knew you would offer it to me. That's how you are, isn't it? My Gryffindor knight in shining armor."

If Draco was going to come onto him, Harry did not know how he could resist. He shuffled in the pocket of his robe and pulled it out, offering it to Draco grip first. "Here it is. Nice wand. Really excellent wand. It saved my miserable arse more times than I can count. And I guess you could say it even saved our world. Thanks. Seriously, thank you."

"Only you, Harry Potter, would thank someone for the use of their wand acquired under such circumstances." Harry could not figure out if Draco was making fun of him or leading him on or both. It felt like both and Harry liked the feeling very much. He also found the new-to him at least-faintly self-deprecating elements of Malfoy's humor incredibly sexy.

Harry's cheeks burned. He could only begin to imagine how flaming red they must look to Draco. "Well, I couldn't have managed without it."

"So they say. That's what will go into the history books." Draco's languid intonation was counterbalanced by another incongruous smile. As he took the wand, Harry felt faintly bereft, but his sense of loss had been immediately overcome by that smile. Given half a chance, he could easily grow addicted to making Draco smile.

"In retrospect, I am very glad you had it," said Draco. "Feels good to have it back though. Like an old friend."

"I liked the way it felt too. Of course, I like my original one better. Once I was able to fix it that is. Did you know that Hermione broke it?" Harry chuckled almost to himself, looking up to meet Draco's amazing eyes, reflecting yet _another _smile. The smiles were definitely going to kill him. The mental image that he had treasured for so long of that cold and haughty but perfectly beautiful face was being erased and replaced with a fresh and strange one. Who could have guessed that Draco Malfoy would have such an easy smile, filled with tender wistfulness and humor?

"I had heard or read somewhere that you had lost your wand."

"I think she might have stepped on it," Harry said, playing for a laugh and getting a soft chuckle. "That was the low point of my personal war against Voldemort." He sighed and shrugged. "Well, I guess I should be going." He could not have been more reluctant to leave, but there was nothing to be done. It would be unprincipled to stay. _Damned truth serum_.

"Oh, no! Please stay! I didn't mean for you to think that you had to leave. I like having you here. Just remember I'm at your mercy. No filters working at all. I wouldn't even consider hanging out with anyone but you at the moment, Potter. Obviously, I trust you completely. But I need you to promise to stop me if I start giving you details of deep dark family secrets or too much information about my previous partners' sexual preferences or perversions. Don't let me talk about the Parkinsons or the Zabinis either. They were here yesterday and are still a bit too much on my mind. I know things about both of those families that I wish I could forget. "

Harry reached out and put his finger against Draco's lips. "Shhh. I'll stay. I'll keep you company until it wears off." Draco pursed his lips against Harry's finger, not quite a kiss, or was it? Shocked at the boldness of his own gesture, Harry had snatched his finger away too quickly to know for sure and desperately wished that he had not. He had always thought that feeling butterflies in one's stomach was only a figure of speech, but Draco's lips moving under his finger had felt inconceivably intimate and, well, for lack of a better expression, given him a distinctly fluttery feeling in his gut.

The tension in Draco's shoulders relaxed further while his face softened even more. It appeared the truth serum had not yet reached its full effect.

"I think your potion is an unqualified success," Harry said, surprised at the slightly husky, seductive quality he could hear in his own voice.

"You think?" Draco asked, with a lopsided smile and a definite wink that time. He flopped down onto the sofa, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossing his ankles on a low coffee table, and wiggling his toes. Leave it to Malfoy to even have pretty feet. There was no justice in the world. Draco leaned back against the sofa, raising his arms to lock his hands behind his blond head. Talk about seductive. Draco's body language made Harry want to throw all of his principles out the window and jump him. Instead he bit the inside of cheek until it hurt to remind himself that no matter how appealing Malfoy was, he was not himself or more accurately he was too much himself, much more so than the tightly wound control freak of a Slytherin would ever want to be in front of Harry.

"Sit here," Draco said, patting the cushion next to him, before handing Harry a stack of books from the sofa to make more room. "You can put those on that table near the bed." Funny how comfortable Draco was giving orders.

Teetering on the top of the books was a tube of the type used for storing rolls of parchment. The label on it caught Harry's eye: "_An Examination of the Theory of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Muggles in Comparison to Reactions to Similar Trauma within a Wizarding Population, by Felix Stanford Smith, Applied Psychology Unit, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, London._"

"Have you actually read this thing on Post-Traumatic Stress?" Harry asked, as he dumped the books and parchment roll on a large side table next to a four-poster bed. Big bed. With lots of room for anything one needed room for in a bed. For some reason the entire situation struck him as comical suddenly, no longer so abysmally serious. He laughed.

"No," Draco said, with wry grin. "But my mother certainly has." They both dissolved into quiet laughter. "What do you know about it?"

Harry tried and failed to control his face and voice before speaking with some small measure of success, he couldn't say why any of this seemed humorous to him, but he did feel his mood lightening perceptively. "Not much, but enough to know that both of us are probably suffering from a textbook case of it. At least from what Hermione has told me about what she has read, which, not surprisingly, is considerable."

"You are welcome to borrow that and read it. Or pass it along to Granger, assuming she has not already snagged herself a copy of it. I'm gonna try yoga for a while. Beats examining my conscience any further or endlessly talking about it. Been doing the yoga for almost a week."

"That explains the funny pants." Draco shook his head at Harry. "So, is the yoga working for you?" Harry asked, skeptical.

"No. Not really. Seeing you is helping though. I'm sorry I pushed you away before. That was stupid of me and self-destructive." Harry's chest tightened at Draco's words and he could feel himself blushing. He needed some work on that particular physical reaction; something similar to his exercises in Occlumency with Snape might help.

"You don't have a corner on that," Harry said. "Stupidity, I mean."

"Oh, thanks, I guess," Draco snorted, reining in a smile and Harry's world for some inexplicable reason turned from black and white to shocking full color. "I don't mind telling you how hot I think you are," Draco said, licking his bottom lip in a way that caused Harry to be unable to look away from his mouth. "In the broad scheme of things, that doesn't matter all that much. The worst that can do is to embarrass me and you won't tell, will you?" Something vulnerable in his eyes made Harry's chest constrict again. "Funny thing that. For years one of my greatest fears was that something would provoke the Dark Lord to try one of his infamous mind fucks on me and he would instantly see that I had been wanking to memories of Harry Potter Boy Wonder for years." Harry could not keep his hands to himself. He reached out and squeezed Draco's shoulder, wanting to do more.

"Ah, Harry," Draco began again. "Just looking at that earnest face of yours is more effective than Veritaserum, more effective than thumbscrews or a Cruciatus actually." A pained expression flitted across his face.

"Hey," Harry said trying for a consolatory tone. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll tell you something. For the last couple of years you have been the star of all my wet dreams. Did not do much for my relationship with Ginny or my attempts to sort out my own sexual preferences. I still don't know if I am gay or only in love with Draco Malfoy. Not even sure if it matters, because really and truly I can't think about anyone but you."

Draco remained silent for a long moment, his face bland and impenetrable. Harry was afraid that he had overstepped some invisible boundary that Draco had erected. It was part of their history, Harry trying to draw closer or erase a bit of past bitterness and Draco reacting, pushing him further away again. And then the crowning horror of all that was the bathroom scene with the Sectumsempra curse. But Harry was determined that nothing like any of those incidents was going to happen this time around. He would wait as long as he had to wait.

"Seriously?" Draco finally asked, his whole face lighting up. "You always do have to be so competitive, Potter. But you cannot win this time. You were the subject of my very first wet dream, way back in my First Year at Hogwarts. Try to imagine how disgusted I was by that."

Harry started laughing and choking. "You had wet dreams that young? You were such a runt then, with your little China-doll face, that sneering cupid's bow of a mouth. I would not have guessed puberty had even begun for you then."

Draco sniffed, literally. "I certainly don't know much if anything about the endocrinal side of all that, or even what might be considered remotely normal. I do know I have always been highly sexual." Harry shivered at that thought, feeling the small hairs on his arms prickle in response. "I had a rich fantasy life and you featured prominently in it. Even when I was asleep. Or especially while I was sleeping."

Just then, two house elves—the Lighthouse one and another wearing a commemorative tea towel of Princess Di's wedding—pushed a softly creaking trolley filled with dishes and trays covered in silver domes into the room. Harry could smell bacon and toasted bread or freshly baked rolls.

"I'm starving," Draco said. "I can't remember the last time I truly felt hungry." He uncovered two of the warming pans and snatched a slice of buttered toast, placing a piece of bacon on it. "Really starving now. If the whole truth be told you have apparently restored my appetite. Don't be shy. It looks like they have outdone themselves this morning." He gestured in the direction of the breakfast. "Do you think I'll start to sleep better also?"

"You too? I'm a mess. Nightmares and losing weight. When do things start to get good again?" Harry had located the fried potatoes and sausage and was loading up a plate. Draco happily demolished his toast and bacon and, looking pleased with himself, reached for a chocolate filled croissant.

"It already has for a lot of people we know. We just haven't caught up with them yet. I think it's normal after everything we saw and did and had done to us that it would take a while longer for you and me. I think we can get our lives back again too. Don't you think so? You can always read the Muggle Post Traumatic Stress thing or take my yoga class with me. I am paying a private instructor to come here. I'm not quite ready for any classes at a grubby Muggle Yoga center yet."

"I'd like to see that." Harry grinned. "They are not all grubby. You could find some posh, over-priced place, I'm sure. Wow. Can't believe the Slytherin Prince just gave me a motivational speech."

Draco laughed and reached out and brought Harry's hand up to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. "Is that what you call me to yourself? I like that." Draco's hand was strong, large and, predictably in retrospect, he had broom calluses on his palms, not silky soft at all like the skin on his torso or hips.

"Why do I feel like I am the one who has ingested Veritaserum?" Harry asked. "Yes. I have called you that to myself, along with a long list of other even more embarrassing nicknames."

"Potter, you always have always talked as though you were on Veritaserum."

Harry huffed at Malfoy in a pretense of indignation. "You should try a portion of this cheese and onion omelet. It's amazing." He pointed to his well-filled plate before returning to the original subject. "I do have secrets. Plenty of them."

"Sure you do. So, surprise me. Tell me a couple of the names you've given me? Indulge me. Entertain me. I've had a rough couple of months. Not that you haven't. But I promise I'll make it up to you. Malfoys never leave themselves in another's debt if they can avoid it. I've not forgotten I have other things to make up to you also."

"If you put it that way, the offer is too good to refuse. Why do I still feel like I will be the one who will walk away from this having said too much? I think I am going to be forced to Obliviate you before we are finished here, Malfoy. The things I have thought about relating to you sound stupendously stupid when I think of saying any of them aloud. Blond bombshell. Sex on stick."

"Clichéd, Potty. Unimaginative. But I respect the assessment behind them. Wanna know what I've called you to myself?"

"Of course!"

"Green-eyed sex god. Yes. That one is mortifyingly lame-on par with one of yours. King of my heart. Also, clichéd, but totally, heart-breakingly sincere. Been head over heels for you since we were kids; especially since you touched me last spring, but even before that, years before that. Everything about you: your courage, your decency, your unpretentiousness, your honesty, your shameless lack of self-consciousness. The list is disgustingly long and sappy. Oh, I also thought of you as my nemesis, obviously. Always believed my feelings for you would as likely as not get me killed. Probably in the most disgraceful and painful way imaginable. Never occurred to me you might save my life."

Harry forced himself to close his gaping mouth and swallow before responding. "Hermione is the only one who ever noticed how hung up I was on you."

"Really? Granger? She is too clever for her own good. That's not surprising though. Women notice things. Pansy called me on my unacknowledged-even to myself-infatuation with you. Told me to get over you, said I would never get into your trousers."

"She was so wrong about that. You could have. At so many points it would have been so easy. At almost any point actually."

"That's not true."

"Don't contradict me, Malfoy. I know how I felt and feel."

"No? I did not get into your trousers though. You got into mine." He laughed. "Merlin, Potter! I still cannot believe you did that. I was dying to tell Pans about that yesterday, but I couldn't, not with it hanging unresolved and without your permission. I cannot believe you grabbed me and snogged me and put your hand right down in my pants and jerked me off."

"I loved doing it. You felt so good in my hand." After a sharp intake of breath, Harry blew out. "I loved making you come," he stammered, "—your face and the little huffs of breath and squeaks you were making. It was spectacular." Draco wrinkled his nose adorably at that remark; Harry wanted to throw him on the sofa at that moment and have his wicked way with him. "Don't take this wrong, but I was not in my right mind. Although, I absolutely do not regret it."

"All right then!" Draco said, laughing, squirming on the sofa. "I'm giddy now. I suppose it's just as well that I accidentally drank that potion. I needed to test the stuff at some point anyway. But I had no idea it would feel like this-all mixed up with your green eyes, pure heart and listening to you talk dirty to me. Wow! I can barely breathe. I suppose if I get in much deeper, I can always beg you to fuck me and then Obliviate you."

"Or just stop fighting it and see what happens."

"You crack me up, Potter! See what happens? Are you having me on? I am gagging for you."

"So I wonder if it would be wrong to kiss you while you are like this?" Harry asked. "Yeah, it has to be wrong." Harry allowed himself a loud, tragic sigh. "What's the point anyway if you are only going to Obliviate me and take it all away?"

"You are a world-class manipulator. I was looking out the window and I saw you kiss my mother's hand. How Slytherin of you. Clever Potter. You have a fan for life now."

"I like your mother. A lot. I wonder if she will still like me if she knows I'm determined to fuck her son. And while he is under the influence of a nearly toxic amount of Veritaserum. What a mess!"

"I think it is highly likely that she set us up, Pot—Harry." The way he pronounced his given name, the resonance of entitlement audible in Draco's trademark drawl, went straight to Harry's groin. That was something kinky and disturbing that Harry would have to put away and think more about another time, why Draco's privileged accent and intonation did that to him.

"Why would she do that?" Harry asked.

"Why not? You are a good man and you are rich. Very top of the social ladder at this point in time also. She wants only the very best for her boy. And she knows I am irreparably bent. Who else is there for me? Blaise Fucking Zabini? I think not. He is almost as promiscuous as his lovely mother. She knows that would never work for me. I'm not good at sharing. You're it, Harry. You always underestimate yourself. You're pure of heart and a storybook hero. I'm not complaining. My tragic flaw always has been that I find a good heart incredibly erotic. I had a terrible crush on Cedric Diggory at one point and Oliver Wood too. But you, Harry, you were always the king of my heart. Will you keep me?"

"There is nothing I'd like better. But we'll see what song you are singing when the truth serum wears off and all of your calculating self-interest and Slytherin standards are working at full efficiency again. You aren't going to Obliviate me, are you?"

"Hmm. Probably not. I have a confession. It's regarding the major breakthrough element of my experimental potion. The problem with the Veritaserum in use currently and why it has only been used as a last resort, and only under the most serious of conditions, is that it can last for hours and hours, up to 24 hours for some people. My new Veritaserum is strong, apparently effective, and lasts only ten minutes."

"You're some kind of potions prodigy, aren't you?" That explained a lot of things actually. Not only did Snape have to look after him, but he probably had admired the boy also.

"I'm a lot better than average. It's not perfect yet. I was able to lie a little as it was taking effect. But then it worked at top strength for nearly ten minutes. I can fine tune that. Tastes terrible also."

"Are you saying that you were only under its influence for the first ten minutes?"

Draco grinned, shrugging in affirmation.

"What was the lie? Please tell me." Harry asked.

"I didn't accidentally drink it. Can't believe you believed that. I think I'm insulted. I was afraid if I did not take it that I would lose my nerve and send you away again. I wanted you to know, because I knew if you knew how I feel about you that you would fight for me. I am so bloody terrified of getting mixed up with you on the one hand and so afraid of losing you on the other. "

"God! You are beautiful! I am so glad I did not send that wand by Owl. I'll take care of you. I swear. I won't let anyone ever hurt you again and you can take care of me. You can teach me all about magical history and even potions if you want. And you can show me how to make love to you." Harry was breathing like he had just run the bell lap in a distance race. Not a particularly attractive way to present oneself if one is hoping to get snogged. Draco's face was flushed and his pupils dilated. That _was_a good look for him.

"I think you are good on that last point. Apparently a bit of a natural," Draco drawled, reaching pulling Harry practically onto his lap.

"That means I can kiss you?"

"You had better kiss me," Draco said. "I cannot believe what a hot mess of a shameless prick-tease you have been all morning. Did I say manipulative earlier?"

The morning had already surpassed Harry's most extravagant expectations and now this. Draco pulled Harry the rest on the way on top of him, his moon pale hair and storm grey eyes reminded Harry of a prince straight out of a child's book of handsome knights and beautiful princesses. His bright pink lips beckoned, incongruously sexual contrasted with his fragile fine-boned features. Draco's mouth opened under his with the warmth and pliancy of that much remembered first kiss.

"Is the door locked?" Harry asked, smiling at his own elation.

Draco muttered a spell and Harry heard the pins or tumblers falling into place. "It is now," he mumbled.

"Mmm." Harry kissed him again and crawled completely onto Draco's lap, straddling him and taking his face in both hands. "So good. Want to move to your bed?"

Draco Apparated them both the ten feet across the room—no words, no wand. "Now you're showing off," Harry said.

"Hardly. You must be joking. With you? First, you are more powerful than any . . . " Harry enjoyed cutting off his voice. He thought silencing Draco with kisses might be one of the most entertaining parts of all this, after making him smile whenever he felt like it. Fucking him would certainly eclipse all of those, however.

"Clothes off?" Draco murmured under Harry's lips. The silencing him with kisses might take a little practice Harry thought.

"Yes, please," Harry said, willing to let Draco feel in control this round. After all, he did owe him in light of the Battle of Hogwarts incident. "What would you like, Draco?" he asked, bravely.

"Ah, Harry," Draco answered, his smile amused and perceptive. "I want exactly what you want. Want you to fuck me."

Harry could barely draw a proper breath. "I don't deserve this," he whispered.

"Oh, but you do. You really do." Draco peppered his face, lips and neck with teasing kisses. "And more. But we can start with this. Would you like me on my back? Or on my hands and knees?"

"You're gonna kill me talking like that!"

"I was hoping to give you pleasure," Draco whispered, flushing more. "So, Potter, what'll it be on my back or my hands and knees?"

"What makes you so sure any of that is what I want?"

"Get real! The macho Golden Knight of Gryffindor? The Boy Wonder of the Wizarding World wants to take it up the arse from a disarmed Junior Death Eater? Hardly."

"Not disarmed anymore. I returned your wand. I don't even know what I want for sure."

"Fine, we have all the time in the world now. Given a margin of error and room for experimentation, you might decide that you like it the other way around, but I still am willing to wager that you have been imagining shagging me. You're a natural top." Draco lowered his eyelashes and coughed, sitting up and beginning to untie Harry's shoes. But it was too late. Harry had caught the look on Draco's face already and heard the meaning behind his words. Draco wanted, expected that this not be a one-time only thing. He wanted a lot more. Harry could barely restrain his jubilation.

He smirked and sighed simultaneously. He realized he had tangible hope, which was all he had really wished for, just a fighting chance. Draco looked up shrugging, as though defeated for the moment, but smiling back at Harry in gracious concession.

Touching and pushing back the blond fringe that kept falling over Draco's eyes, Harry said. "I'll take whatever I can get from you, Malfoy. I'm opened minded." Draco huffed at him. Earnest, Harry continued. "Really I am. True, it's just easier for me to imagine myself on top and you on the bottom. I've done that part before. But I've become addicted to a lot of things that I never even knew existed a few years ago."

"If you are referring to the youngest Weasel, you've not done it before. You and I will be nothing at all like that. I promise you. But even if you have done it with another bloke, it wasn't me. I'm one of a kind."

"Oh, you _are_one of a kind. And I have great taste." Draco cut off Harry with a kiss that expanded and lengthened until they were both squirming and gasping.

Yanking the tail of Harry's shirt from his trousers and unbuttoning it, Draco said, "You look even better than you did the last time I saw you with your shirt off."

"That was nearly two years ago. More than one at least. I've grown a little since then." Draco's mouth was everywhere around his neck, his ear, his shoulder, when suddenly he sucked a nipple in his mouth and bit. Then he laved it with his tongue until it turned into a rock hard pebble. Harry squeaked, giggled and then said, "Wow! Nice! Who taught you how to do that?"

"Would you believe a Muggle chauffer in Paris?"

"No," Harry said. "You just invented that to shock me." He grinned at Draco and was answered with a smile that could melt a glacier.

"If not a stranger in France. Then who?"

"I would think, let's see. Um, educated guess is Nott."

Draco looked surprised. "Theodore Nott?"

"No, his decrepit Death-eating old man! Of course, Theodore Nott. It was him, wasn't it? He always acted like he thought he was so fucking superior, even to the lot of you. But I caught him staring at your arse plenty of times. He also had this proprietary little smile he would sometimes give you. Anyway, he's fit. He was the smartest Slytherin. There were rumors too."

"There were rumors I was getting it on with everybody. Like sexual license was the norm in Slytherin House and I was the king of the snakes. One, I am just as smart as him. Two, if great looks are the most important thing I wouldn't be thinking of shagging you, would I?" Draco said.

"Shut up! You love the way I look."

"And if being the smartest were a requirement, I'd be chasing after Granger not you. Right?"

"I'm just saying that Nott's an attractive bloke. And you, look at you. Who could resist you? You do love to talk shit, Malfoy."

"Talk shit!" Draco said in a mock American accident, clever in how narrowly it deliberately missed being perfect. "You look good and know it."

Draco clearly did not need a lot of positive reinforcement about his looks. Malfoy Manor was filled with mirrors. But hearing it from the mouth of Harry, had made him sigh as though relieved. It was a tiny sign as Harry interpreted it that Draco did worry about how he was perceived, actually, more accurately, how he, Harry, perceived him.

"You are such a Muggle-loving . . . " Draco began again, but Harry interrupted him by covering his mouth with a big, open-mouthed kiss. It nothing like any of the kisses he had ever shared with Ginny. Sweet, beautiful Ginny. Wow! It had to be that he really did have a very particular, almost entirely exclusive thing for blokes. She was no competition at all for this kind of kiss. So deeply tender it was almost sad, but suddenly turning rough, joyous, hot, firm . . . kisses had never been remotely like this before. And it was not just him. The response from Draco was immediate and powerful, with some well-directed muscle behind it. Their nervous chatter seemed to have completely worn itself out at last.

"I'm going to have to take another shower," Draco mumbled once much later, in an extremely poor imitation of a complaint, pulling his shirt over his head without bothering to unfasten any of the buttons. Harry concentrated on getting him out of the yoga pants. Not entirely surprisingly, he wore no underwear underneath the flimsy trousers. Malfoy had the look, if you didn't really know him, of someone who was more comfortable laced up tight and layered, but he wore loose yoga pants with nothing under them. Typical misdirection. He loved being touched and showing off his body.

Looking at him was amazing and he knew it. Harry loved that about him. There were a few fine lines on his completely hairless chest from what Harry had done to him. A glory trail of golden hairs led to a thick curly thatch, slightly darker, out of which jutted a beautiful prick, longer than one might expect and paler, although it blushed a most lovely shade of rose as it grew harder. It made Harry's mouth water, but Draco was having none of that. He intercepted Harry leaning over him and pulled him into another long kiss.

Eventually they did get Harry undressed completely also and then Draco was proved unequivocally right, although he did not say a word or gloat. What they both really, really wanted was for Draco to be on the bottom, on his back, with Harry on top and Draco's head tipped back, yielding a exquisitely long neck that Harry could lick and bite and kiss and suck, while he held him tightly by the hips bones and pounded into him. Draco loved it. Harry loved it. And Draco had to cancel his Yoga class.

After a morning and afternoon in bed, two showers, hours apart, and finally dressing for dinner with Narcissa. Harry floated on what had to have been a completely obvious, epic afterglow through a languid evening of surprisingly simple and wholesome food and wine. "I thought Harry might like French country cooking," Narcissa had said, playing the perfect hostess to them. He could not help but notice her barely restrained smugness at how Draco could not stop smiling and Harry could not take his eyes off him. They eventually found themselves back in Draco's temporary bedroom-the ludicrous drawing room with the porcelain figurines of simpering shepardesses half-heartedly fending off leering, grasping wizards on the mantelpiece and the outrageously large bedstead.

"If you are sure you really want me to stay tonight I will. But I do have to go home tomorrow. You can't keep shrinking the legs of your trousers to make them short enough for me and letting out your shirts so they fit me across the shoulders." Draco was quite adept at apparel modification charms.

"Of course, I can. It's not as though I altered anything I really liked."

Harry obligingly hit him on the head with the latest issue of _Quidditch Monthly_. "What happened between you and Nott?"

"Well, what you might expect," Draco said, extending each word interminably before stopping for a moment to draw in a laborious breath. "That was Fifth Year. Pretty much everything two horny post-pubescent blokes can do together. Does it matter to you that you're not my first? Please say it doesn't matter all that much. Even it does."

"It doesn't matter." Harry laughed. In fact, it did not really matter at all. How could he dream of snarking at fate when it had just handed him Draco Malfoy? He tugged Draco closer to him by a lock of his hair and kissed him. "I didn't mean the details of the physical acts. I meant why aren't the two of you together anymore?"

"Not a lot could survive our Seventh Year. Seriously, because Theo is a cold-hearted bastard and, anyway, he liked sex with me, but he always thought I might be emotionally unstable. Mental. Barking mad."

"That is a priceless pearl of wisdom. The idiot! You _are_emotionally unstable. One of the things I like about you. When I was a little boy I'd have called you magic. Alternatively, it's called intensity, passion, fervor. The qualities that make life worth living, make you worth loving. You do know what everyone says that about me, don't you? We'll be great together. Never a dull moment. Knott should have been in Ravenclaw."

"I think you just manufactured a backhanded, semi-unconscious compliment to Slytherin House. I'll never understand you, Potter. One moment you are heroic, serious, the epitome of boyish innocence and the next moment you are all full-frontal snogging against walls in public places and hands down my pants, or holding me down and fucking me into the mattress, and then pillow talking like a philosopher, throwing around fistfuls of Granger's two-galleon words."

"And it all turns you on, doesn't it? The Boy Idiot and the one that might be almost as smart as you."

"You wish," Draco said. "Don't be obvious."

"I know. I'm obvious," Potter answered. "Who wouldn't be. You're fucking gorgeous and you're mine now. Amazing. Being with you like this is worth everything."

"Not to rain on your parade, but what about Hogwarts this fall?"

"I thought maybe we could gradually work up to talking about that. I did not have any real plans when I left home this morning. I came to bring you the wand, but chatting with your mum outside among the weeds . . . We should go back to Hogwarts. People will just have to get used to us."

Draco interrupted him with a laugh. "Your eyes are really, really green right now. Exciting. That's it. When you're in your charismatic mode, I can understand what it is that Weasel and Granger see in you. I know you're can't be like that all the time. I wouldn't expect you to be. I've seen the two of them worried about you and trying to cheer you up. The strength of your magic must be wearing at times. I do know how to be decent as well."

He was offering to look after Harry also. "I think I found something that recharges it," Harry answered. Draco kissed him jubilant, letting the healing magic trickle down and fill any remaining empty spaces in his body or his soul. "Cataclysmic," he gasped against Draco's lips.

Encouraged by how well things had gone so far, exhilarated by the astounding chemistry, Harry allowed his own natural vitality to bubble up again. He took a deep breath and grinned, pointing at his own chest. "Gryffindor courage is the only trick this pony has mastered."

"What are you yammering about, Potter?" The line of Draco's lips had eased into a sweetly yielding half-smile.

Harry began again. He widened his eyes, trying to convey a sincere, but logical tone. "Hmmm. Don't say anything yet. Just listen for a second . . . it occurred to me that you need to get away from here. You could stay at Grimmauld Place with me in London until we leave for Scotland. It's just me there now. No one would bother us without fire-calling first."

"Are you serious? The old Black townhouse? So, my ancestral home really does belong to you."

Harry snorted. "_One_of your ancestral homes. How many do you need?"

"Clever, Harry. Are you sure we won't hurt one another? I don't ever want to hurt you. What if we have a row and end up hating one another, then what?"

"You could come back here, or go ahead to Hogwarts. But that's not going to happen. I already promised you. We never did end up truly hating one another before, despite everything that occurred. Faffing about at my place with no one else around to bother us or make us feel self-conscious, no one judging, could not possibly be that bad. If you're worried about being together all the time, you could have your own room. You ought to have you own room anyway, some place where you can close the door and pout if I do get on your nerves. And I can whinge and wail on the other side of your door begging you to forgive me. You'd enjoy that a lot and I'd do it for you."

"I know you would," Draco said amiably. Then he drew his eyebrows together and stuck out his lips in an almost convincing pout. "But if you're asking me to marry you, Potter, I could never do that. You're a half-blood and, even if you weren't, you couldn't give me an heir." Harry hit Draco with a pillow and crawled up on top of him again, pinning his arms above his head. He could feel him hardening instantaneously.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" he said rubbing himself against Draco. "We can give it a try anyway. It's only a couple of months until we go back to Hogwarts."

"You knew I'd say, 'yes.'"

"Actually, no. I dared to hope."

"I can see the articles in The Prophet already. _'Wonder boy takes up with disgraced scion of vast Malfoy fortune'_—It's not you know. Vast, I mean—_'They should have locked him up with his father and thrown the key away.'_Are you sure this is worth the trouble that it's going to cause for you?" Draco asked.

"Absolutely, positively sure. It's gonna be brilliant."

The End.

I want to thank everyone who has read this. The requesst for notification of an update have been so encouraging. Makes me wish that I had more than one update to make. (I know that people sometimes in this fandom break their work into tiny chapters to milk the highest readership possible, but I like to read longer chapters myself! So, if you did enjoy it, recommend it to your friends, because I am not very good at self promotion.) Thanks again for reading!

**Why Malfoy's Wand: **Looking at photos of Draco's wand kick-started my imagination. The wand was not at all what I expected, the most basic in design of the ones that we were shown in the films. At only ten inches, compared to others, take Harry's which is eleven inches, Darco's is a real shortie. And Harry's is much more elegant. The Elder Wand, for example, borders on baroque in style. Draco's wand is neither ornate nor sophisticated in appearance.

**Wand Lore**: The author notes that she used certain Celtic folk references to types of wood in choosing some of the wands in her stories.

"_Some time after I had given Harry his holly-and-phoenix wand I came across a description of how the Celts had assigned trees to different parts of the year and discovered that, entirely by coincidence, I had assigned Harry the 'correct' wood for his day of birth. I therefore decided to give Ron and Hermione Celtic wand woods, too. Ron, who was born in the February 18 - March 17 period, was given an ash wand (I think I had originally marked him down for beech), and Hermione, who was born between September 2 and September 29, received a vine wood wand."_ - JK Rowlings' website.

Apparently Draco, by an even further stretch of coincidence, was, unbeknownst to JKR, was also given a wand constructed of the wood belonging to him according to his date of birth. Hawthorn is assigned to the May 13 - June 9 period and Draco's birthday is June 5. I found some interesting notes on hawthorn wood after I had already committed myself on paper.

_"Hawthorn is traditionally used to make psychic shields, particularly for the innocent and vulnerable. It can be given to help protect a child from any harsh energies in the environment, and particularly at puberty when a child is particularly sensitive and vulnerable, and in need of psychic protection. This aspect is also reflected in its use as a hedging plant, not only for its thick impenetrable growth, but also as a psychic shield."_(White dragon website)

If any young person in the Harry Potter books needed a Hawthorne wand, it was certainly Draco Malfoy.

**Malfoy Manor**: The vistas of Malfoy Manor shown in the _Deathly Hallows _films contradict my visual image of the manor house that had imprinted itself on my mind after reading the books. It reminded me more of a Scooby Doo haunted house than the description of Malfoy Manor in the texts. South Wraxall Manor in Wiltshire, which dates to the early 15th century or slightly earlier is closer to the type of set up I imagine for the setting of my story above. Meanwhile, because I was not unduly besotted with the vision present in the film, I relied upon the texts and my imagination to paint a picture for my readers of Malfoy Manor. We are told in _The Order of the Phoenix_ that Malfoy Manor is located in Wiltshire in southwestern England. In _The Deathly Hallows_ we read that it a "handsome manor house" and is surrounded by extensive grounds. Also, in DH, we learn that there are albino peacocks (seriously! Lucius Malfoy apparently had a Louis XIV complex) and a fountain on the grounds.


End file.
